Promises
by kohitsujichan
Summary: Kyouko makes promises, breaks, keeps and takes them back.
1. Promise Broken

**I do not own Skip Beat, I only glory in the talent that is Nakamura Yoshiki.**

"Don't worry," she said, "I promise never to fall in love with you."

"Where did that come from?" he asked.

She pointed at the TV where a show about on-set romance was airing.

"…and well, we were just around each other so much, on set, or rehearsals. We'd grab a bite to eat together during breaks, and it just kind of happened."

"For me, I think a lot of it was spending so much time immersed in a role where I was in love with her," the man added, "It's hard not to let those feelings bleed over into real life."

"But don't worry, Tsuruga-san, even though I'm in a role where I love you more than anything," Kyouko said, referring to her role as Setsu, " I promise I won't let it affect me in real life. You'll always be my respected sempai."

There was a beat of silence before he answered. A silence during which his brain processed the words over again. "I love you more than anything," echoed in his head before the other pieces filtered back into place and destroyed that lovely phrase.

"I wasn't really concerned about that, Mogami-san," he replied carefully. 'In fact, by all means, fall head over heels in love with me,' he would have liked to add, but he contented himself with a strained smile.

"Of course not," Kyouko replied with a blush. "You wouldn't think about me that way. I am the number one LoveMe member after all.

"Thinking like that isn't going to help you graduate from LoveMe," he admonished. "You ought to realize you have the power to attract."

"Maybe the power to attract stupid psychopathic beagles from hell," Kyouko mumbled angrily.

"More than just him, Mogami-san," he replied.

Kyouko furrowed her brow, "Like, who?"

'Damn it,' he cursed to himself, 'think of someone who isn't yourself or that stupid childhood friend.'

"Well," he said recovering, "I overheard someone saying they were a fan of yours at one of my photo shoots…and of course, I'm your fan, Mogami-san."

"Eh? You're not allowed to be my fan! You're my sempai! If you're my fan, who's going to scold me when I make mistakes?"

"Is that really all you see me as?" he said affecting a hurt tone.

"Of course!" she replied obliviously, "You're my mentor and my teacher. You have to scold me. If you don't, I may run wild, become self-satisfied, get a big puffed up head and act like I'm the greatest thing in the world with no regard for other humans and whether or not I'm stepping on their hearts or using them, and then—"

"Mogami-san," he said, stopping her tirade. Her train of thought had obviously started running toward someone he did _not_ want it to run to. "I don't think there's any danger of that. You're a professional. You're new, so of course you'll make mistakes, but you've done an excellent job so far, and everyone enjoys working with you."

"Really?" she asked blushing.

"Yes, really. So, let's have no more talk of you being unworthy."

"But—"

"Being worthy doesn't have anything to do with being loved anyway," he said. " Everybody should be loved."

"Are you perhaps President Lory in a Tsuruga Ren suit?" Kyouko asked incredulously.

"No," he said with a chuckle, "I just don't want you to think you're unworthy of love, Mogami-san, because you most certainly are."

"But—"

"No, buts," he said. "Now promise me you won't be surprised when people love you."

"But—"

He raised an eyebrow.

"I promise," she said begrudgingly.

"Now that that's out of the way," he said, "I have something to tell you."

She looked at him expectantly.

"I love you, Mogami-san."

"Eeeeeeeeh?" she shrieked.

"You broke your promise, Mogami-san," he said with a chuckle.

"That's cruel, Tsuruga-san!" she humphed.

"I'm just trying to help get you out of LoveMe, Mogami-san," he replied.

'And if I could only get you to break your other promise, then we may get somewhere.'

**AN: Ah! Done! I've never written fan fiction before and I don't really think it's my forte But, if someone likes my story, I'll be very happy :) Thanks for reading! If you'd like, leave me a review and let me know what you think.**


	2. Promise Made

**I didn't think I would continue this, but elfenknight was kind enough to suggest it be made into a two-shot, so I tried...and it turned into 3 more chapters. So, though this wasn't exactly what you suggested, elfenknight, this one goes out to you. Still don't own Skip Beat.  
**

"Mou! You have got to be the most oblivious person I know," said an exasperated Kaene.

"Eh? What do you mean, Mouko-san?" Kyouko asked.

"I mean, a man doesn't say he loves you as a joke!"

"But he said he was just trying to help me get out of LoveMe," Kyouko protested.

'Yeah, by making you fall in love with him,' Kaene thought to herself. With Kyouko though, she knew she would have to approach her explanation in a different way if she wanted it to sink into that dense head of hers.

"So, he said he wanted to help you get out of LoveMe, right?" she asked.

"Yes!" Kyouko answered with a smile. "Tsuruga-san is always looking out for me, trying to help me improve my acting."

"And why do you think he's always helping _you_?" she asked leadingly.

"Well," she pondered for a while, "I suppose I need a lot of help. I really have a long way to go before I can even begin to hold a candle to Tsuruga-san."

Kyouko's expression began to darken as she contemplated the marginality of her success when compared to her sempai. It was like she wasn't even on the radar. If she stood next to him, she would be like a ghost invisibly standing there next to a living person, a mortal standing next to a god, a toad standing next to the prince of fairies…but that title belonged to Corn.

Kaene snapped her fingers in front of Kyouko's dejected yet dreamy face. "Hello? Earth to Kyouko? Wake up!"

"Oh! I'm sorry, Mouko-san! I didn't mean to waste our time together! I was just thinking of how troublesome it must be for Tsuruga-san to have to always be helping out such an untalented kohai."

"Do you really think that's why he does it?" she asked "Because you're _un_talented?"

Kyouko gave a timid nod.

"If you were untalented, he wouldn't waste his time on you, would he?" Kaene forced Kyouko to agree. "And anyway, there are a lot of other kohai who he doesn't help. He doesn't help _me_."

Kyouko thought for a moment, a look of horror slowly dawning on her face. "I'm so sorry, Mouko-san!" she wailed. "Tsuruga san is so busy helping me that he doesn't have time to be attentive to other more worthy kohai."

"Mou!" Kaene shouted, shaking Kyouko by the shoulders. She took a deep calming breath before continuing. "Ok, let's look at the facts, shall we?"

Kyouko nodded.

"Tsuruga-san said he loved you," she said, pointing to her index finger.

"But he said he was only—"

"Did he ever take it back?" Kaene asked.

Kyouko went over the events in her mind.

"I'm just trying to help get you out LoveMe, Mogami-san," he said.

"But teasing me that way isn't going to make me recover my lost emotion!" she scolded.

"No, I suppose not," he said with a smile the emotions behind which, she couldn't quite identify. It wasn't what she'd call a happy smile. She went over the list in her mind, the emperor of the night, the god smile, the fake gentlemanly smile, but it didn't match any of them. It seemed…sad.

They went back to silently watching TV and Kyouko changed the channel. She made sure not to utter any more promises for the rest of the night.

"Well? Did he?" Kaene prompted, index finger marking fact number one still on display.

"No," Kyouko recalled, "He didn't take it back."

"On to number two then," Kaene said, pointing to the next finger, "He spends a lot of time with you."

"But that was for— " she cut herself off, before thinking and finishing with "work."

"And how many times have you seen each other outside of work?" Kaene asked.

"Not very often," Kyouko said, thinking.

Kaene raised an eyebrow at her. "Sometimes Yashiro-san asks me to cook for him. And there was that one time when Tsuruga-san was perfecting his Katsuki," Kyouko blushed, shuddering at the memory of the emperor of the night before moving on, "And there was the time he helped me with creating my Natsu, and sometimes he gives me rides home."

"And how often does he do those things with other kohai?" she asked.

"Um…I don't know…Tsuruga-san is very busy, and our schedules don't match up very often, so I don't know what he does for other kohai when I'm not around."

"How much free time do you think he has to be hauling all his kohai all over the place and practicing with them and eating with them?" Kaene asked. "You think he can manage more than just you?"

"I must take up so much of Tsuruga-san's time!" she wailed.

In the back of her mind, she vaguely wondered where he found time to see the high school girl he was in love with if he spent all his free time with her.

"Forget about that for now," Kaene instructed, "Besides, he wouldn't do it if he didn't want to."

Kyouko stemmed her tears and nodded, waiting for Kaene to continue.

"So, one, he said he loved you, two he spends _all_ his spare time with you, and three, he treats you specially."

"Eh?" Kyouko asked.

"You already mentioned a lot of ways he treats you special," Kaene reminded her. "He doesn't have dinner with _me_ or give _me_ rides or practice acting with _me_."

"Mouko-san—" Kyouko's lip trembled and her eyes began to fill with apologetic tears.

"I don't care, ok?" she told her. "It's not like I want those things, I'm just making a point."

"What sort of point?" Kyouko asked.

Kaene took a deep breath. "You are going to kill me one day, you know that?"

"Eh? I would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever—" Kyouko blubbered.

"Mou! I didn't mean it like that!" Kaene yelled, shoving a box of tissues across the table. "Dry your eyes, you look like a leaky faucet."

"Mouko-san! You're so kind!" Kyouko sniffled.

"Anyway," Kaene continued, "The point I was trying to make was that Tsuruga-san loves you."

"Eh? That's impossible!" Kyouko exclaimed. "Tsuruga-san already has someone he loves."

As soon as she'd spoken, she clapped both hands over her mouth. She wasn't supposed to know that, let alone tell it. Only Bo knew, and Bo was a chicken who communicated via whiteboard, not the proverbial little bird who's always telling people everything.

"Spill!" ordered Kaene.

"But, Mouko-san! It's not my secret to tell!" she explained, "Tsuruga-san doesn't even know I know!"

'This is getting more and more interesting,' Kaene thought.

"Spill!" she ordered again.

"But Mouko-san!"

"I guess I was the only one valuing our friendship," Kaene said rising to leave. She knew it was kind of dirty to play the friendship card, but it was for Kyouko's own good.

"No! Mouko-san! Wait! I'll tell you!" Kyouko relented.

Kaene sat back down and Kyouko recounted the whole tale…minus as many embarrassing details as she could spare Ren from. Still, it was enough for Kaene to realize that the high school girl he was in love with was Kyouko. Half or even a quarter of the detail would have been sufficient to convince her of the fact. She wanted to scream and shake her, call her an idiot and tell her that it was obviously her…but this was Kyouko. She would not believe that someone loved her…especially someone like Tsuruga Ren, without concrete evidence, which was why she devised a little scheme.

"He's never told Bo the name of the girl he loves, has he?" she asked, knowing full well that he had not. Though, knowing Kyouko, she might have brushed it off, rationalizing that Kyouko was a very common name.

"No," Kyouko replied.

"Try asking," Kaene said.

"Eh? How can I do that? It's an invasion of privacy!" she vehemently declared.

"No it isn't," Kaene assured her. "He and Bo are friends, right?"

"…sort of," Kyouko replied.

"Close enough," she said, brushing aside Kyouko's reservations. "If you know who he loves, maybe you can help him. You'd be an ambassador of love just like the President wants. This could help you get out of LoveMe like Tsuruga-san wanted, and it could help him get the girl he loves. It's win-win."

"But—" Kyouko protested.

"Don't you want to pay him back for all the help he's given you?" she urged.

"Well, yes, but—"

"Good, then you'll ask the name of the girl he loves and then you can help him and get yourself out of LoveMe," Kaene said as if it was a done deal.

"But Mouko-san! I don't even know the next time I'll see him as Bo!"

"Well, just do it whenever the next time is," she told her. If Bo was Tsuruga Ren's love counselor, she had a feeling, Kyouko wouldn't have to wait too long after that failed attempt at a confession he'd pulled on her.

"Um…alright…" Kyouko mumbled unconvincingly.

"Promise?"

"I promise," she said begrudgingly.

**AN: And on to the next chapter. Hope this didn't detract too much from chapter one **


	3. Promise Kept

**I still don't own Skip Beat.****  
**

Kaene's intuition proved to be correct. It was on the very next filming of Kimagure Rock after the incident that Ren sought out 'the chicken.' Kyouko was able to behave more casually than she thought when she saw him coming.

"Yo," she said in her disguised voice, raising her wing in greeting.

"I'm glad I found you," Ren said with a sigh.

"What's up?" Kyouko's chicken person asked, "You seem upset."

"Well, I think I screwed up. No," he amended, "I know I screwed up."

"This is about that high school girl again, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, and let out another long dejected sigh.

"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad," she said patting him on the back with her wing."

"Oh, but it is," he told the chicken. "I told her I loved her."

"But that's great!" cheered the chicken.

"and she thought I was teasing her," he finished.

Kyouko froze for a minute. He had told _her_ he loved her, and _she_ had thought he was teasing her. But then she shrugged it off. It had to be a mistake. 'Of course,' she rationalized to herself, 'If _the_ Tsuruga Ren confessed his love to a normal high school girl, of course she'd be skeptical.'

"Of course she'd be skeptical," she repeated her logic aloud for him to hear, "You're _the _Tsuruga Ren. You don't just go around confessing your love to high school girls. Of course she must have thought it was too good to be true."

"I don't think that was the case," he replied.

"Why? What happened after you confessed?" she asked.

"Well, she acted all surprised," he said.

"And?" Bo waited.

"So, I let her think it was a joke," he told her.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked.

"No, why?" he asked.

"It's because she's insecure! _The_ Tsuruga Ren just confessed to her! Of course she'd be surprised! You have to assure her that you mean it! That's when you take her in your arms and kiss her!"

"I tried something like that once and she couldn't function," he told her.

"Is this girl an idiot?" Bo wondered aloud.

"Hey," Ren said, taking offense at the chicken calling Kyouko stupid.

"Well, you've kissed her, told her you loved her and she still doesn't get it? That only leaves one possibility. She's stupid."  
"She's not stupid," Ren defended. "She just doesn't believe in love."

"Huh?" asked the chicken.

"Well, she is a LoveMe member, after all," he explained.

"Is it Mouko-san?" she burst out before she could stop herself.

"What?" Ren asked, his eyes immediately opening to three times their usual size.

"Um, Kotonami-san, is it Kotonami-san? Or Amamiya-san?" she asked trying to recover from her fatal error.

"Oh god," Ren uttered. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath before turning to Bo and slowly lifting off the head of the costume. Kyouko didn't protest. She knew it was too late, and her head was swarming with so many ideas that she wouldn't have had available neurons to devote to body movement even if she'd wanted to stop him.

Her eyes were already filled with tears as he finally set the headpiece aside. "I'm so sorry Tsuruga-san!" She wailed. Not the words he wanted to hear from her right now. "I didn't mean to deceive you! It's just that when you first met Bo, you didn't like me and I felt like I could help you as Bo, but I didn't think you'd want to talk to me as me, and even when you didn't seem to dislike me so much anymore, I didn't think you'd want to come to a lowly kohai for advice and I thought it would be ok as long as I never told anyone and you never found out because I only wanted to help and I would never to anything to betray you and—"

"Mogami-san," he put a finger on her lips to stop her hysterical rant. Then it came. First, in a small puff of air, then as a diaphragm flexing, body shaking, peal of laughter. He had been so worried that he had just exposed everything to her, and here she was, completely glossing over it and worrying about the exact same thing.

Kyouko was surprised at first, then relieved, then offended. Her sempai continued to laugh until he was breathless and had to wipe a tear from his eye.

Her expression became black. "I don't see what's so funny, Tsuruga-san! I was so worried that you would hate me and then you start laughing while I'm here waiting on the chopping board!"

"That's why it's funny, Mogami-san," Ren said, stifling a few chuckles, "You were worrying about me hating you, while I was worrying about you hating me."

'Or erasing me,' he added in his head.

"Eh? But I could never hate you, Tsuruga-san!" she vehemently declared.

"Even though I love you?" he asked.

"Eh?" It seemed that in the panic of exposure, Kyouko had stored all the information from their conversation in a part of her brain for later sorting, but with the repeated declaration, it all came rushing back, and likewise every red blood cell in her body came rushing to her face.

"I love you, Mogami-san," he repeated. "It seems that I won't be able to hide it anymore, so all I can do is tell you and hope you won't hate me for it."

"I could never hate you, Tsuruga-san," she repeated, as if on auto pilot.

"Are you alright?" he asked, noticing her vacant look and that the blood which had been so recently coloring her face seemed to have all but abandoned it.

"I'm alright," she said robotically. "It's just a lot to take in."

"I understand," he replied, for the moment, reveling in the fact that she hadn't run away in terror. "I won't force you, Mogami-san. I understand how you feel about love. But please, don't cut me out. Things don't have to change if you don't want them to, but please at least stay my favorite kohai."

She nodded silently.

"Why don't you go change, and I'll drive you home," he suggested, "You must be tired."

Kyouko again, nodded silently and robotically made her way down the hall and into the storage room to put away her costume and change, her mind going over and over the things that her sempai had just said.

When she came out, Tsuruga-san was waiting for her outside the door with a very familiar smiling chicken head in his grasp. "You forgot this," he said, handing it to her.

"Thank you," she replied, taking it and putting it away before re-emerging.

'At least she's gotten back to the point where she can utter simple sentences to me,' Ren consoled himself, 'I thought it might take weeks.'

The ride to Kyouko's home was silent. The robot-Kyouko sat stiffly in the passenger seat, staring unseeingly through the window.

"Nothing has to change, Mogami-san," Ren reminded her with a sad smile as she stepped out of the car."

"Thank you for the ride, Tsuruga-san," she said with the ghost of a smile on her lips as she got out. She turned around and bowed once more before disappearing into the restaurant she called home.

**AN: And one more.**


	4. Promise Retracted

**I do not own Skip Beat**

"I don't know what to do, Mouko-san!" Kyouko pleadingly told her best friend.

"What do you want to do?" Kaene asked.

"Um…" Kyouko thought for a while, thoughts and images swirling in her mind without ever managing to form themselves into coherent thought. "I don't know!"

"How do you feel about him?" she asked.

"I respect him!" Kyouko shouted it almost before Kaene had finished the question.

"Mou! I get it, you respect him. What else?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Kyouko asked tilting her head brows furrowed.

"I mean, what else?" she asked exasperatedly. Then realizing she would have to make it simpler, she asked, "Do you respect me?"

"Of course!" she declared, "You are an amazing actress with the beauty of a goddess, the intelligence of a—"

"Enough!" she stopped her, "See? You respect me, but you feel other things for me too. So, what else?"

Kyouko looked at her in confusion.

"What else do you feel for Tsuruga-san besides respect?" she clarified.

"Um, well, I'm grateful to him," she said. As she contemplated, a soft smile came to her lips and warmth filled her expression, "He's always helping me become a better actress, and a better person. He helps me even though he's always so busy, and he cares about my feelings. He even said that nothing had to change if I didn't want it to."

"Do you want it to?" Kaene asked.

"I'm not sure," Kyouko said.

"Well, maybe you should find out," Kaene said.

"You're right, Mouko-san." Kyouko nodded, determination in her eyes. "I will."

Kyouko searched all over LME before finally spotter her tall sempai and his manager, in the lobby.

"Tsuruga-san," she called breathlessly running up to him. "Do you have a minute?"

Ren looked pleadingly at Yashiro who grinned from ear to ear, nodded and stayed put.

"Can we have a minute _alone_?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, of course," Yashiro replied. He scurried off suppressing his fangirl squeal and Ren and Kyouko stepped into an unoccupied conference room.

"Um, Tsuruga-san," Kyouko began, "I—"

"Wait," he interrupted her. "Just give me a minute."

Ren took a deep breath and prepared himself for the worst. He'd expected her to act strange around him, avoid him, refuse to be around him outside of work and refuse to break character when acting with him. Even in his wildest dreams and craziest, most unbelievable fantasies, she had come to him to tell him she loved him only after weeks of suspenseful waiting. This was too soon to be anything good. She was obviously here to tell him that her promise held, that she would never be able to see him as anything more than a sempai, that she would never be able to love him.

He took a deep breath and reveled in his last few moments of hope. If she never told him, he could pretend that he had hope, but he couldn't be so selfish as to make Kyouko feel awkward.

"Ok, Mogami-san, go ahead," he said, steeling himself as best he could for the gut wrenching blow to come.

"Tsuruga-san, um I wanted to talk to you because, um" Kyouko averted her eyes, "I'm not sure how I feel about you."

"What?" he asked in shock. This was not what he had been expecting. He had been expecting an 'I'm sorry, but I can never love you.'

"I'm, sorry, Tsuruga-san!"

'Well, there's the first half,' he thought dejectedly.

"Even though we've known each other for so long, and you're always helping me, and you deign to care about me, I still can't sort out my feelings for you," she apologized.

Relief swept over him. "I told you it's alright, Mogami-san. You don't have to give me an answer now."

"But when I talked to Mouko-san, she told me I could feel more for you than respect and that I should go talk to you to find out if I wanted things to change between us," Kyouko explained.

He sighed, grateful for Kaene's advice and at the same time regretting that she knew.

"Do you feel more for me than respect, Mogami-san?" he asked holding his breath.

"I- I respect you. I look up to you. I'm grateful to you," she listed, unable to meet his eyes. "I- I don't want you to hate me. I was shocked when you said you loved me, but I was also relieved."

"Relieved?"

"Well, I thought you might hate me," she said looking up at him with watery eyes, "I mean, I deceived you. I kept that fact that I was Bo a secret and let you keep telling me secrets. I only did it because I wanted to help, but I didn't tell you, so I thought you might hate me, but then you…didn't."

"I could never hate you, Mogami-san," he replied with a soft smile.

"Really?" she asked, blushing and smiling through her tears.

"Yes," he assure her, "Never."

"Even if I didn't love you?" she asked.

He felt a stab of pain, but answered, "Yes, Mogami-san, even if you don't love me, I could never hate you. I have too much respect for you as a person, too much admiration for your determination and your kindness to ever hate you."

"And if I did love you?" Kyouko asked.

His breath caught in his throat and he had to remind himself not to immediately pull her into his arms and never let go, that it was phrased as a hypothetical question, that she could still tell him that she didn't love him.

"If you loved me back, I don't think I could ever hate anyone again," he said, surprised that he really meant it. His heart would be too full of love for Kyouko to accommodate an emotion like hate.

"Tsuruga-san, I'm sorry," she said, "But would it possibly be ok if…maybe I took back my promise from before?"

"Which promise was that, Mogami-san?" he asked, his heart nearly beating out of his chest.

"The one about never falling in love with you," she said blushing.

"It most certainly would," he replied flashing his god smile at her, and for once, it didn't seem too bright.

**AN: Well, that's it Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave me a review if you'd like to let me know what you think. Thank you to everyone who reviewed!  
**


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